Faster's Better (PG)
by Loganlover
Summary: Explores Darien's relationship with his mentor, Liz.


Title: Faster's Better

Author: Loganlover

Email: [Quicksilver_theagency@hotmail.com][1]

Status: complete

Category: Angst, Drama, Romance

Spoilers: Liberty & Larceny

Season: Season one

Rating: PG

Content Warnings: none

Summary: Explores Darien's relationship with his mentor, Liz.

Disclaimers: I don't own these characters, they're the property of the SciFi channel and its writers. This story is written just for fun, and no profits are being made from it. 

*********************

// The story is told of the power of gold and its lure on the unsuspecting. It glitters and shines it badgers and blinds and constantly needs protecting. Balance the cost of the soul you lost with the dreams you lightly sold. Then tell me that you're free of the power of gold. // _- Dan Fogelberg_

****

It had been a crappy day from the start. 

First thing in the morning my hair wouldn't cooperate, it was insisting on a been-through-a-tornado look. A real 'Albert Einstein' on the Bad Hair Index. Mousse, gel, nothing was helping. In fact, I think they made it worse. Then I get hassled by a cop for parking in a 'handicapped spot' while eating my lunch. Though I did get a chuckle out of turning the tables on her by Quicksilvering my lower legs. The look on her face when she saw I had no feet was priceless. 

But then, just to make the day _really_ perfect, I get hauled into the Official's office and chewed out by everybody I work with. I knew there was some crap coming down the second I walked into the office. There's the Official, Eberts and Hobbes as usual, but the Keeper is there too. Uh oh! Like, what'd I do now? And I can't believe they shoved a 'counteragent request form' in my face. Their new rule; I was not to use quicksilver unless its for Agency sanctioned assignments, is ridiculous. Its like telling a lifeguard he can't go swimming except as part of his job. Like I asked for any of this! The least they could do is let me use it when I want. 

So I guess it shouldn't have surprised me that the crap continued to hit the fan when I got home. 

But surprised doesn't begin to describe how I felt when the chair swiveled around and I was face to face with Liz. Stunned was more like it. A hundred thoughts rushed through my head in seconds. Where had she been? Why was she here? Was she back in my life again? Did I want to even go there? I mean, here sitting in front of me was the one woman who had been everything to me. Friend, teacher, mentor, lover, oh yeah…. 

She was looking at me with an unreadable expression. "Two man job. One night's prep, one night's work. Your take-home is four hundred large." She paused, "you in?"

Things I hadn't thought of in years, memories from my youth flashed through my mind. 

Liz and I had started off with a student-mentor relationship, but I could still remember like it was yesterday the night that all changed. 

*******

Liz flopped down on the couch next to Darien "So how was that? Not bad huh kid?" She nodded encouragingly. 

Darien smiled up at his mentor. "That was awesome! Everything came off just like you said. Even the cop's patrol schedules... right on cue." 

"Exactly the way it should be Darien. If you plan it right, there'll be no surprises." Her expression turned serious. "Surprises get you busted" she warned. 

"So now what?" Darien relaxed himself into her couch, stretching his arms out across the back. He'd been training with Liz for more than four months now, learning about lock picking, drilling safes, how to defuse burglar alarms and all the basic B&E stuff. But this had been their first big job. Well, big for him anyway. 

The safe at the house they'd broken into had almost $9,000 in cash as well as some pretty expensive-looking jewelry. Not bad for an hour's work. Well, OK technically it was only an hour's work if you didn't count all the surveillance and advance planning that went into making it a success. Liz knew the critical value of that kind of planning, but Darien wasn't experienced enough yet to count it. 

"Oh, I dunno kid" Liz said, moving herself closer to Darien "you told your aunt and uncle you'd be at a friend's house tonight, yes?" 

"Yeah, Doug Sanders' place. They don't even have the phone number there, so there's no chance they'll try to track me down or anything." Darien was an expert at avoiding the attention of his guardians when he chose to. 

"Well then " Liz said with an odd look on her face, "I've got a few ideas about what we could do." She leaned over and kissed him. He smiled back. He'd never felt so happy, so contented as at that moment. That was when their relationship had really deepened. 

****

And so here she is again, in my apartment. Those memories had come rushing back to me in a moment. I didn't know what to say to her. Coming back to myself, I realized I was just standing there staring at her. I had to say something. 

"You look great Liz."

"You seem to have filled out nice yourself. You lift a lot of weights in the pen?" 

So she knew what had happened to me - at least as far as my last arrest. How long had she been keeping track of me? Did that mean she was still interested? My heart was aching with how much that still meant to me, how much I was hoping she still cared. 

"You went up for life on a third-strike rap. It was in all the papers" Liz continued. "How'd you get out?"

Ah, I could never keep anything from her. I just couldn't. Its like this weird truth-compulsion. I can lie with the best of them to just about anyone else. Just look sincere, keep those baby-browns nice and open and innocent looking, and convince anyone of almost anything. That's how I'd spent so many nights with Liz in the first place. My aunt and uncle had never suspected a thing. Heck, if I ever wanted to, I could convince the Official, Hobbes and all of them that I'd grown to love my job as an agent. That I didn't mind the gland - or better yet - that I'd 'come to terms' with it. Yeah, that'd be more believable. 

Sometimes I think lying is the best thing I do. But not with Liz. Then I realized it really didn't matter. The truth was so outrageous, she'd never buy it anyway. 

"Well if you must know, I was pardoned by a secret intelligence agency who surgically implanted a gland in my brain to turn me into a super-agent." Flat, matter-of-fact delivery, just like a pro Darien. She'll never believe it. 

She shrugged. "You don't want to talk about it, its cool." 

Score! She bought it. Yeah Liz, I just don't wanna talk about it. You just keep thinking that and we can avoid that whole nasty subject. 

Liz raised her beer bottle. "Old times."

"Old times."

"New crimes" she added. 

Oh God! I almost choked on my beer. Talk about your loaded topics! Those old times were great. The crimes had been exciting, exhilarating and just plain fun. But thinking about my past with Liz was like driving a stolen car down memory lane. You're afraid to linger cause you might get busted. And eventually, we did. 

****

Liz had been everything to me; my teacher, my mentor, my love. We'd fallen into this great routine. I'd meet her after school or in the evenings a couple times a week. We'd either work on my basic B&E skills, or planning a job - and sometimes - actually going out and doing a job. At first she would only invite me along on the smaller simple jobs. But later on, I started helping her on the bigger, more complex operations. Either way after just about every job, and always after the bigger ones, we'd go back to her place and just be together. I could never quite decide which was more exciting, the thievery or Liz's company. Didn't much matter since they'd all become part of one fabulous package. 

Our relationship continued like that for a blissful, but all too short time. Liz always said change was the only universal constant. I guess she was right. I suppose it was inevitable. Even the best thieves get bagged sooner or later, I just wish it had been later….much later. 

We were working this job at the north end of town. That's where the lake and country club were, and of course all the rich folks' summer houses. The announcement in the paper said the wedding was at noon followed by a reception at the club. That should have left us all afternoon to pull this job, get into the house, clean out the safe and anything that looked worth taking, and be back out before they'd even cut the cake. 

How could we know the groom was gonna get cold feet. 

Worse yet, a couple of 'nice guys' on the police detail that were assigned to traffic control decided to help the family out and accompany them home from the church. So the cops arrived with the family – six hours ahead of schedule. Liz and I didn't even get down the stairs before the cops were cuffing us and reading our rights. 

Liz didn't even look at me on the ride to the police station. I couldn't imagine what she was thinking. They separated us as soon as we got there. Considering how freaked out I was, its probably just as well I didn't know what was going to happen… that I wouldn't see her again for a long time. 

The rest of the evening was like some strange nightmare where reality had taken a hideous left turn through a tunnel somewhere and you don't know when its gonna' come out the other side. They called my family of course. Uncle came down but couldn't bail me out until the next day since the officer in charge of juvenile processing was off duty until then. They didn't let him see me until then either, for which I was grateful. Anything that delayed _that_ confrontation was welcome as far as I was concerned. 

The night spent in the holding cell was not as bad as I'd expected. Somehow it didn't live up to all the scary stories I'd heard. The ride home was worse. Uncle had been excessively polite, even chummy with the cops. Small town, upstanding citizen and all that. They were commiserating with him, old pat-on-the-back sympathetic. Poor guy doing his best, stuck with this rotten kid for a nephew… you get the idea. I felt like crap. Not just because they were all looking at me like I was scum that seeped out from under a rock somewhere, but because I knew what was coming next. 

See, Uncle was all quite and polite, and even sympathetic in front of the cops. God, he acted for all the world like the most caring, concerned parental-type. Right out of Good Housekeeping or something. But I knew the ride home would be different. He'd do his Jeckel and Hyde routine on my ass. Sure enough, as soon as the car door shut beside me he morphed into the creature from hell. Like I didn't already feel like crap. I think I counted all of ten seconds before he started comparing me to Kevin. Why couldn't I be more like Kevin? Didn't I know I had lots of potential, just like Kevin? Kevin was such a good kid, and I was such a disappointment, blah, blah, blah….. I tuned out long before we got home. 

They offered me a deal. They'd go easy on me if I cooperated in their prosecution of Liz. It would help them a lot they said, to get her for contributing to the delinquency of a minor in addition to the burglary charge. Heck, if I'd told them everything about our relationship, she'd have been in big trouble – but I wasn't cooperating. This was _my_ Liz they were talking about, and I was feeling protective. So I didn't admit anything. As far as my testimony was concerned, she was this total stranger who just happened to be there when I got arrested. 

I got sentenced to eight months in Juvie. 

Compared to the crap I was getting at home, it didn't seem like such a bad deal at first. But I still couldn't get Liz out of my mind. I had no way of finding out what happened to her. We weren't allowed any newspapers, and there was no way anyone 'on the outside' (like my uncle) was going to tell me anything – especially about Liz. Being as how she was 'such a bad influence' and all that. I mean, they really had NO idea! 

*****

So here I am again. Back with Liz and planning a robbery. 

"You're late"

"Yeah, I know, sorry about that. I got a little run around. kinda took a weird way here." 

"A professional is always..." It felt just like being back at school. She was slipping right back into her mentor/teacher role.

"Punctual" I interrupted. "I know, I know, I'm sorry." And I was back to being the dutiful student. Damn, it was so easy to pick up where we'd left off. 

"So what's up, where's the place?" 

"I give you the Tenneson Building" Liz said, nodding toward the office building across the street. "The FBI's offices are on floor sixteen. Security varies with each floor. We deal with the lobby and sixteen." 

"How many lobby guards?" 

"Two at day, one at night." 

"Cameras?" 

"Two in the lobby with overlapping arcs." She leaned across the table toward me, "the lobby's a bitch." 

"They got a service door?" 

"Alarmed, double dead bolt." 

"Man I miss this." I suddenly realized just how much. The planning, the excitement. I was so tuned in to it now, my memory flashed right back to our old routine. Shit, I was actually getting excited sitting here across from her. And I bet I could show her a few new things too. Whoops. I realized I'd been lost in thought while I stared at her, thinking of happier times. Better get my head back to the present. 

"Tell me about sixteen." 

"Each office has a mag lock and key lock, we have to deal with them both. The hallway has a few infrared trip beams to give the place that Sharper-Image touch. We make them visible, play hop scotch down to the end office, special agent Lohmann's office." 

"I guess that's where the.."

"Where the goods are," Liz filled in. "The files, tapes and all the evidence Costagnacci want's destroyed." 

"Yeah." Now that was one thing that put a real down-note on this whole operation. We were doing this to benefit a crime boss. 

"What's that 'yeah'? We can pull this off" Liz insisted. 

"Uh no, believe me that's not what I'm worried about." I was thinking about Costagnacci. 

Liz was immediately defensive. "You think I'm thrilled about keeping 'Johnny Books' out of jail? If it were my choice, that guy would be out of business." 

"Yeah but you got no choice right?" She just didn't get it, there are always choices. 

"This is counter productive."

"I'm only telling you how I feel." I wish I could have told her _everything_ I was feeling, but she was cutting me off. 

"We're thieves Darien, this what we do, this is who we are. You'd be turning down half a mil! But then she backed off a bit, "but if it doesn't feel right you can walk, just like I taught you." 

"Is that why _you_ walked?" 

"You are still pissed!" Liz seemed surprised. She shouldn't have been. I hoped she'd known me better than that. 

"I just wanna know why. Tell me why." Come on Liz, read between the lines here. I want our relationship back. I want it _all_ back. 

I thought if I could get some answers, it might make things better between us. Where had she been? And why the heck had she left me in the first place? God, that still cut like a knife. 

****

It had been our last job together. It wasn't a bank job – Liz and I had never gone in for those – too difficult, too risky. It was however, the next best thing. Wallace & Cramer was a new jewelry outlet that was scheduled to open in a local mall the next day. They were so new to the area they didn't have a full staff on board yet. Our surveillance had told us that was true for their security staff too. This job hadn't been too tough to plan. The mall had a bunch of back-alley type access hallways that provided service access to each store. The store next to W&C was a clothing outlet who's security was less than stellar. Once in, it was fairly easy to remove some of the modular wall panels that separated the two stores. The Jewelry store had two vaults, one behind the cash register on the main floor, the other in back. 

I took the one up front, blew the safe and stashed a beautiful cache of rings and loose stones. This was a grab-n-go operation with 10 minutes allotted for the inside work before we absolutely _had _to split. We'd do inventory on our take later. 

Liz took the rear vault. 

I'd finished cleaning out the front safe and was ready to roll right at the 10 minute mark when Liz came out of the back room. We slipped through the wall between stores and headed for the exit. 

Then I realized, "hey, I didn't hear any 'pops' back in there. Did you get the vault open?" 

Her irritable response said it all. "No, I didn't get the damn thing open. Drilling took too much time. The freakin' thing musta been made outta kryptonite. I just got it set to blow when our time ran out." 

"Wait, Liz. You mean the explosives are set to go? You left it like that."

"Yeah Darien, I left it like that. No time. Don't worry, its only a few bucks worth of equipment, we'll replace it." 

"That's not it Liz. People are gonna come to work tomorrow, open the vault door and Bang! Someone could get killed. Liz, we gotta go back and defuse it." 

She looked at me like I'd gone insane. "No time Darien!"

"We can't just leave it like that. I'll be real fast, this will only take a minute." I think I was trying to convince myself as much as her. I knew this was a big risk, but I couldn't get the picture out of my mind - the one where someone comes to work, minding their own business and gets blown away when they open the door to the vault. 

Liz grabbed my arm. "You go back there and you could get bagged. There's probably a silent alarm going off already, you won't have time to get back out again." She sounded almost frantic. "What's wrong with you Darien? You wanna get busted again?" 

"I'll only be a minute." God, I was hoping it would be OK. I just stopped thinking about it and ran. 

Yeah right. A minute later I was busted. Liz got away with the merchandise from the safe I'd opened. 

The whole time I was out on bail awaiting trial I expected to hear from her. Not a visit - too public, but maybe a phone call, a note? It wasn't like our first arrest, when she'd gotten bagged too, and because I was a juvenile I didn't have a way to reach her. This time I was 24, an adult with my own apartment and everything. She'd have had no problem reaching me if she wanted to. I kept hoping for a call, a word…anything. 

Nothing. 

I got a eighteen months in Solidad penitentiary. 

That's when it started. At least, that's when I really began to notice that I couldn't sleep. If it had started earlier, I wouldn't have noticed anyway. See, with Liz it was fun being awake most nights. Planning jobs, executing jobs, and of course the extra curricular all-night bang sessions. I didn't miss the sleep then. 

But prison was different. Not nearly so much fun. Long nights with nothing to do. Lights-out at 10pm, no reading in bed, no TV, etc. etc. – you can't imagine the dullness. Prison is ultimately an organized bore. So, three am on the dot I'd be awake, give or take fifteen minutes. Then I'd get to toss and turn and generally stare at the ceiling till dawn. If I was lucky, I'd get another hour or two of sleep before they woke us for the daily routine. 

Now, doing this once or twice a week was tolerable. But it started being three nights a week, then four, then most of the time. By the end of the third month, I knew for certain there were 3,425 holes in the acoustic tile ceiling above my bunk. Yep and after awhile, that routine can really drag you down. 

I don't know whether it was the lack of anything to do, the boredom, losing Liz, or just plain old sleep deprivation. Whatever the cause, I really started to slide to shit then. My attitude sucked, I couldn't concentrate. Hell, I couldn't remember half the stuff I was reading in the prison library. See, I was working on a bachelor's degree in fine art. Hey, I figured that way I'd know what was worth lifting. Y'know, being able to tell the good art from the crap. I was still picking up more tips on lock picking and safe cracking, but anything I read, the 'serious' stuff I needed for my course work ran through my head like a sieve. A major case of CRS disease (Can't Remember Stuff). 

I didn't see much of Aunt or Uncle that year either. And virtually nothing of Kevin. I think they wanted to 'spare him the indignity' or avoid exposing him to the 'wrong elements' (like me) or something like that. Or maybe he was just busy with that MD/Ph.D. program at Yale. Whatever. Aunt & uncle had made the obligatory Sunday visits for awhile – a 5 minute 'hello, how ya doin' session just to ease their conscience and keep up appearances. But it was plain to me they'd rather skip this entirely. Me too, since it was such an obvious pain in the ass to them. 

And to make things _really_ peachy, every visit they would use the opportunity to fill me in on what Kevin was doing, what awards Kevin had gotten, the prestigious job offers Kevin was getting. So when the visits stopped, so did the Kevin Reports – for which I was grateful. Not that I didn't love my brother, but sometimes it was just too much to deal with. 

When I got out, I expected to see Liz again. I'd been nurturing this hope that her not calling me before was just a fluke. Sooner, or later I thought we'd get together and pick up where we left off, just like before. But this time, that didn't happen. I found myself looking up our old haunts, checking out all the places we used to go. Hoping to run into her, or at least get some word from her. Nothing. 

Now I knew she was still in circulation. Too many of our old contacts had seen her recently for her to have retired or dropped out of sight. So I finally got it through my head, it was just _my_ sight she wanted to be out of. I spent a lot of time then torturing myself with questions, trying to understand why. Why'd she leave me? Was it me? Something I did? Said? 

Other people in my life, like Kevin, my uncle, my parole officer, had always been able to make me feel like worthless shit. A real low-life scumbag with no future. It probably wasn't intentional, but that's how I felt. Liz had been the one bright spot. Someone I thought, who had really liked me for me. I didn't have enough confidence to say 'loved' but even 'liked' was a big step up. 

It took a long time, I mean a_ really_ long time for me to put that behind me. Or at least I thought I had. So to answer Liz's question, yeah, I guess I was still pissed. It still hurt. I had just stopped thinking about it - but that didn't make the pain go away. 

*****

We spent the early part of the evening in the café across from the Tenneson building. Watching the guard's work routine, checking when the government employees left for the day; the early ones, the regular 9-to-5 types, and the late stragglers who probably liked their work life more than their home life. I suggested dinner out, but Liz thought someplace out of sight would be better, at least until after this job was done. 

After the job was done? Was she suggesting an on-going relationship? Maybe she'd stick around for awhile. My heart skipped a beat. Oh yes! But the complexities of that, given my new situation with the Agency, the gland, and everything else were too much to think about. "Just concentrate on today Darien, and you'll be OK." At least that's what I was telling myself when we got to my place. 

I wanted to talk with her more about our client 'Johnny Books.' I know I'd promised Liz that I would do this job. I mean, I was definitely 'in,' but I still wasn't comfortable with it. Not by a long shot. I just hated the idea of helping a mobster. 

Liz however, had her own special way of talking me into anything. As soon as they walked in the door she turned and kissed me. She seemed hesitant, tentative at first, but her confidence came back real fast. I'd forgotten how great she was at this. I've never really had anyone make me dizzy just from kissing…except for Liz. Oh yeah, Liz. Dizzy, disoriented and totally pliable. 

I'd do anything for her. It could have been our long history together, or because I had missed this physical closeness in my life lately. Between my last arrest, Kevin's experiment, and the Agency, I hadn't had much time for a social life. Hobbes was probably getting more action than I was. Hell, even Eberts probably has a better social life than I do. 

But - and maybe I'm over analyzing this - I think I could never say "no" to Liz because she was the only person who really knew me, and liked me anyway. With everyone else, I had to lie. Try to be the good citizen, boy scout - well OK, I'll never make boy scout - but I at least had to be the contrite, reformed criminal ashamed of his past and working to do better…yadda, yadda, yadda. But not with Liz. With her I didn't feel second-rate. Like I'd somehow failed to measure up. 

The truth was, I missed my old life. I missed the excitement, the danger, and I missed Liz. Quicksilver was just no substitute. 

Yeah, I'd do anything for Liz. Couldn't help myself. And that's where the trouble lay. 

****

And so, we got caught. 

Or at least, _I_ got caught. Looks like its déjà vu all over again. Liz and I had argued briefly about the witness protection file. But she stunned me at last by telling me why she'd left me. Only yesterday afternoon she had worked to reassure me that the reason she left had nothing to do with me, but it had. And though I tried to deny it, I had known all along. Tonight she told me flat out that she couldn't handle my 'conscience'. It was too inefficient and ultimately, too dangerous for our line of work. So when that car nearly hit Hobbes after he'd jumped us, she took the opportunity to split. 

Hobbes dragged me back to the Agency and on the way I got the reaming of my life from him. High, Loud and Repeatedly. 

"I can't believe you're arresting me."

"Well, believe it pal. You don't fish off the company pier. You cross over the line buddy, and I'm on you like a pit bull on a mailman." 

"Come on, you're my partner, doesn't that count for something?" 

"For the Agency pal! Remember? Those guys we work for?" Hobbes looked over at me and his expression softened a bit. "Look, you do shit like this and you think its just another little black mark next to your name? Wrong! You embarrass the Agency enough and you'll eventually make yourself a liability, and they'll get rid of you."

"They can't." I pointed at my head. "Remember their little seventeen million dollar investment?"

"They might anyway." Hobbes voice lowered, "and I know they'd want to keep their gland."

Hobbes was obviously overlooking an important point here. "But taking it out would kill me."

He took his eyes off the road and looked pointedly at me. "I'm sure they know that." 

Suddenly, I got that 'ah crap' sinking feeling. What had I been thinking? The risks I took to steal for Liz were a lot more serious than I'd thought. Actually I hadn't done much thinking at all. Would they really kill me to get their gland back? Like all spy-type operations, the Agency regarded its agents as expendable. Hobbes knew that and signed on anyway. He just felt the job was that important and like a good soldier, he felt the risks were worth it. But I could never wrap my head around that. I didn't volunteer for this – exactly, and I sure as hell didn't think of myself that way. No 'expendability' here. 

Hobbes derailed my train of thought. 

"Look, I'm supposed to be watching your back and guiding you here. You can be a good Agent. You got a lot of potential, you just have to get it through your head that you're not a thief anymore." 

I took a deep breath. This sounded a lot like the "you've got so much potential" speeches I always got when I was a kid. All those feelings of people being disappointed in me, and me in myself, came back in a rush. But I liked Hobbes. A lot. So I tried to explain. 

"OK, here's the thing Hobbes, I've been a thief ever since I can remember. I don't know how to _be _anything else - not and be good at it anyway. Like, I remember my uncle buying a safe for his lab when I was about 8 or 9 years old. I was down in his lab, playing with the dial, trying different combinations. He - and I'm sure he was joking here - he offered me five bucks if I could open it. I must have spent four hours with the darn thing that afternoon." 

Hobbes glanced at me. "You spent four hours before you finally gave up? Man, that _is_ stubborn." 

"Nope. I spent four hours before finally I got it open. Bam!" I couldn't help but grin. This was what I was good at. Didn't Hobbes get it? "So who says crime doesn't pay? I got the five bucks too." 

Hobbes shook his head, a wry smile on his face. "Kid, sometimes you scare me." 

The smile disappeared as Hobbes grew very serious again. "So, you wanna tell me what you think you were doing tonight?" 

I realized that I'd better come clean. There were two lives in danger; Liz and the witness, and just didn't have any time to work out a slick explanation. Right now, the truth was going to be the fastest way to get things straightened out. So I explained as much as I could about the job for hire through Costignacci and the witness protection file I'd been hired to steal. As much as I could without mentioning Liz. 

Hobbes wasn't buying it. Clearly, he was prepared for me to lie, and he wasn't buying half-truths. He seemed to sense that I was holding back on something. "So who's the chick you were with?"

Crap! My mind raced trying to decide how much I could withhold and still say something that was believable enough to get results. Would I be betraying Liz? Could I? If I didn't, she could get killed by Costagnacci's goons. If I did, how could I protect her from anything the Agency might do? 

Well?" Hobbes kept up the pressure. He was clearly disgusted by my reluctance to be honest, even at this late date. 

The van was pulling into the Agency parking lot. 

I made another attempt to avoid talking about Liz. "Look, right now there's a witness in danger of being aced. The file we got from the FBI offices was a witness protection file. A Barry Benish at1226 Riverside Drive. We have to get to him before Costagnacci's guys do." 

"Oh yeah, hotshot?" Hobbes countered, "and exactly why would I be listening to you here?"

Hobbe got out of the van, and came around to let me out of the door.

"Hobbes, ya gotta believe me. The guy's life is in danger."

"Yeah, yeah sure. Tell it to the Official." 

Things didn't get much better when we got to the Keeper's lab. When you walk in the door and the first thing they do is handcuff you to a chair, you know what's coming is not gonna be good. 

The Official, Hobbes and the Keep all took turns yelling at me and generally making me feel like scum. 

The most important thing on my mind though, was the witness who's file we'd stolen. I knew Costignacci would have that witness killed as soon as he got that file, and time was running out. I was talking fast, explaining the whole thing to get them to move. But they were being thorough and by-the-book. Hobbes ran a check on Liz and on the car that nearly hit him. Only when the info came back off the wires and confirmed what I'd already said, did they finally believe me. 

It took an eternity. 

Then I had to help Liz. I knew she'd be in as much trouble as that witness if Costagnacci thought she was working with the Feds. But first I had to get out of this chair. 

So, I did what I do best. I lied. 

I sweet-talked the Keeper with a highly-believable story about wanting to take responsibility for my actions and help Hobbes protect the witness. She was so gung-ho about lecturing me with that key-chain crap about taking responsibility, she bought it. Hook, line, sinker and copy of Fishing Times. 

Life has a screwy way of making truth out of lies sometimes. I hooked up with Hobbes again at Costagnacci's place. But while we were busy bagging 'Johnny Books' and that homicidal witness, Liz slipped away. 

I ran to the door and caught sight of her driving away in a Mercedes with the haul from Costagnacci's safe. At that moment, I'd have given anything to be with her. If I hadn't been so close to needing the counteragent, I might have run down the driveway after her. Yeah OK, I'd only have a few days with her until I went nuts, but at that moment it seemed like it might be worth it. 

Just for that moment though. Then the heavy hand of reality taps me on the shoulder, and I get that sinking feeling. No matter how much I want it, its not going to happen. Besides, even if I did make that deal, come day six Liz might end up paying the price at the hands of that red-eyed demon. Heavy sigh. I had to drag myself away from the door and back to where Hobbes was reviving the witness. 

The hardest thing though, was saying goodbye to her the next day. She'd called to have me meet her "at the regular place." When I got there she told me she had my share of the take. She was so happy at having the money - enough to retire - that she positively glowed. I could tell by her tone she was thinking about saying around and hooking up with me, maybe more long term. It was everything I wanted right then. 

It felt like my heart was being sliced open. I knew I could never deal with that. 

Liz had always liked me for me. I never had to lie to her, and I didn't want to lose that. But I knew that would all have to change if we stayed together. I'd have to learn to lie to her about what I do, and why I'm doing it, and it would ruin everything. By keeping her around, I'd lose the thing I wanted most. 

So, I walked away. If anything, I'd rushed the goobyes. I was afraid if I lingered over 'goodbye' it would become 'hello' again. 

Maybe she was right after all. Faster's better. 

   [1]: mailto:Quicksilver_theagency@hotmail.com



End file.
